The tea – both dry leaves and post-steeping liquid – smells like bergamot candy. It’s got the citrusy sharpness of bergamot, but it is cuddled on all sides by a very sweet cake-icing-like vanilla smell. I would like a candle in this flavor please. It smells delish.

Usually, I take flavored teas with sugar and half & half, but today since I have the time I had this one straight. At first sip, I didn’t really get much taste, just a little hint of tartness at the end. But as I continued to sip, the taste seemed to build in my mouth – first the vanilla sweetness and then the edgier bergamot (which I’m pretty sure is the tart taste at the end of the sip I had at first – as I continued to sip, the vanilla smoothed out the edges of this tart endnote).

One thing that I don’t really taste, however, is tea. The added flavorings are nice – not impressive but nice (I’m a fan of anything that reminds me of icing) – but the overall taste just feels like it is missing something. And I’m pretty sure that something is the taste of tea. If I had to guess, I’d say this is a fairly meh Ceylon but that’s only because it doesn’t really taste like much of anything and that lack of taste is something I associate with not-very-special Ceylons. That could just be prejudice against Ceylons speaking. Anyway, towards the end of the cup, there was some astringency that left my mouth feeling a bit dry and that was the closest to “tea” that I really got out of it.

I’ll going to hold off on rating this until I have a chance to try it with additives – I have a feeling the bergamot and vanilla will really make me happy with sugar and half & half mixed in. Especially since any time I use additives, I’m not really expecting or looking for any strong tea flavor.

Profile

Bio

Sometimes my notices for PMs and such have been questionable. Email me at your own risk at aug3zimm at gmail dot com.

1 – 10 – Bleck. Didn’t finish the cup. 11 – 25 – Drinkable. But don’t punish me by making me have it again.26 – 40 – Meh. Most likely will see if the husband likes it iced.41 – 60 – Okayish. Maybe one day I’ll kill off what I have in my pantry.61 – 75 – Decent. I might pick some up if I needed tea.76 – 85 – Nice. I’d probably buy but wouldn’t hunt it down. 86 – 100 – Yum! I will hunt down the vendor to get this tea!